Guide to The Cheltenham Jackpot

Making a jackpot bet is very popular at Cheltenham and can pay huge dividends - at the Festival in 2009 the Jackpot twice paid over £70,000!
Here we explain what a jackpot is, how to make your Cheltenham jackpot bet and some tips and advice for winning a Cheltenham jackpot.

For our best Cheltenham tips check out our main Cheltenham tips page or for tips on each of the individual races click on the links in the left menu.

Tote Jackpot

This is one of the most popular tote bets but the one of most difficult to win and consequently if you do strike it lucky it could change your life as sometimes the dividends are huge!



A Tote Jackpot bet can be played daily and is available at just one meeting (except Saturday). It consists of selecting a winner at all of the 6 Tote Jackpot races at the selected meeting. Anyone taking a chance on a Jackpot must find all six winners of the nominated races. During the Cheltenham festival, the Tote Jackpot is normally on the first six races at Cheltenham.

As in all Tote betting, bets on a particular race are pooled (minus a deduction for costs). The winning dividend is calculated by dividing the pool by the number of winners - so you're betting against other people rather than against the bookmaker. Bets are accepted up to the first Jackpot race and dividends are declared after the last race.

Jackpot Stakes

Stake line entries are accepted with a minimum stake of £1, rising thereafter in multiples of 10p. Permutation entries are accepted with a minimum stake of 50p, rising thereafter in multiples of 10p, providing a minimum total of £2 is staked.

You can select more than one horse in each race to give you more chance of successfully landing the bet. So, for example, you might want to have two selections in five of the races with one race covered by one horse that you think should be a banker.
The bet then looks like this;

2 x 2 x 2 x 2 x 2 x 1 = 32 bets

However, it's still asking a lot to pick six winners even with a couple of selections in each race. Quite often people will combine ideas (and resources) in a syndicate to enable them to cover a larger number of selections in each race. So you may want to get together with a couple of friends and pool ideas and spread the cost!

Something like;

4 x 3 x 3 x 2 x 2 x 1 = 144 bets

This gives you a few chances in a number of the races and if you are in a group the cost shouldn't be too big. To work out the cost of your bet just multiply the number of selections in each race by your stake.

What happens to non runners in a Jackpot?

It also pays to make a note of non runners before placing your bets. Often punters will not bother to check if their selections have been pulled out at the last minute and this then means their bet is transferred to that race's favourite.

In the event of joint favourites, the selection becomes the market leader with the lowest racecard number. This can have a very big effect on your bet as you may not think the favourite has much of a chance in that particular race and would prefer to select another runner.

So, don’t put your bets on too early but always make sure you have left enough time to beat the queues! Good luck!

Cheltenham Jackpot Tips

If you are looking for tips for your Tote Jackpot then click on the races in the left menu. Or see a summary of our best Cheltenham Tips

Place your Cheltenham Jackpot bet at Totesport now.

 

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